4 Tips to Keep From Crafting Your Way to the SWTOR Poorhouse

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear someone in the SWTOR community say with the utmost conviction: “Crafting is broken. It’s just a huge money sink.”

And while I can certainly understand that the individual making this statement has apparently bankrupted their virtual selves through their pursuit of crafting, I know from my personal experience that statement isn’t a universal truth.

Those of you who listen to me on the TOR Reporter podcast already know that I’ve been able to finance my characters across 4 servers solely through my crafting. While most of them have yet to attain the dizzying heights of Galactic Trade Nexxi, who is so rich Chuck Norris comes to her for loans (thanks Silent!), they have all helped keep me from resorting to grinding dailies or bonus series quests to keep fiscally afloat.

Not surprisingly, I’m often asked what my secret is to having profitable crafting. And thus, I’ve compiled these 4 tips to help you attain a positive crafting cash flow.

Crafting Tip #1: Learn Complimentary Gathering and Mission Skills

I’ve frequently heard people say things to the effect of not wanting to take a gathering skill other than slicing so they can make lots of credits, or not wanting to level underworld trading as a mission skill yet taking synthweaving as their crafting profession. Unless you have landed on a busy server where supply for your crafting materials far outstrips the demand, it is unlikely you will be able to purchase your crafting materials from the GTN more cheaply than running missions on your companions for them.

Further, with an appropriate gathering skill, you will readily pick up a good amount of the base materials for your your profession as you go about your daily activities. Before you snatch up 6 rubat crystals in the GTN thinking you’ve gotten a great deal, remember that you could have gotten 2-3 crystals from a 95c mission, or better yet just from walking around. Not sure which professions go together? Check out this crew skills overview which explains them all in detail, and includes pairings at the end of the post.

Crafting Tip #2: Craft as You Go

I know many folks like to wait and slam through all their crafting en masse, after they hit 50. And these are most often the same people I hear complaining that they are broke and it’s all crafting’s fault. But here’s the thing: crafting didn’t smack you over the head and steal your wallet.

You can train up your crew skills on your first trip to the Fleet, in the level 7-10 range. You can start your gathering profession immediately thereafter. And as soon as you obtain your first companion, they can be sent to craft for you, or to execute crew skills missions.

If you keep a sharp eye out on your mini map, you can make sure to travel from quest area to quest area via gathering nodes. Or if you are lucky enough to be able to recover materials from your slain foes, you can make sure to always kill an extra few silver mobs instead of sneaky past them to ensure you are keeping up your materials base.

Crafting Tip #3: Give Yourself a Set Crafting Budget per Day

It can be tempting to start sending your companion out immediately to level up your crew skills, but you are honestly better off in taking a look after an hour or two of play at what you’ve gathered, then filling in some missing crafting materials and sending your companions off to craft overnight while you’re safely logged off.

Alternatively, if you want to be sending your companions out on missions to obtain specialty crafting materials as you play, be sure to give yourself a set budget then do not exceed it. Once you get up into missions costing 1500c+, times 4 or 5 companions, you can easily blow through your savings if you are not disciplined about your budget.

Crafting Tip #4: As You Level Your Profession Make Either Cheap Items to R/E or Items That are Hard to Come by

And as you level your skills up, try to strike a balance between crafting inexpensive items you can R/E for mats while obtaining skill points, and the occasional leveling item to sell. I’ve previously covered my strategy for inexpensively leveling synthweaving, so be sure to check that out for ideas.

To identify the leveling items you should craft and sell, go to the GTN and do some searches for the crafted items you could, in theory, make. I bet if you make armor, you’re seeing a ton of items, frequently those for level 43+, in the under 5k range. Maybe even up for the cost of the mats or less. Put these items on the list of things you do not want to be making. Being in a price war on the GTN with someone who prices like Walmart is a great way to go broke fast.

Instead, look for gear that you can make, that players are asking for in general chat or on the forums, or that you don’t see up for sale very often. Now, if you make consumables of some sort, you’ll need to modify this strategy a bit, to be looking for items you see for sale pretty regularly but that sell out quickly.

Each server’s economy is different, and there will be many nights when you have all of your GTN sales returned to you in the mail. That is to be expected. So don’t give up! Learn over time what your personal best sellers are, and focus on making those items. You don’t need to have a discount superstore’s level of selection up for sale to be successful in your crafting!

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27 thoughts on “4 Tips to Keep From Crafting Your Way to the SWTOR Poorhouse”

I went with Artifice/Archaeology/Treasure Hunting. Whilst the professions have been a bit of a money sink for me to date I’ve a good stock of companion gifts that have allowed me to max out all 5 companion affections on my main as well as extras for my alts. Hopefully I’ll see my money levels raise over time 🙂

My marauder has artifice and those complimentary professions as well. Which is why she was my first toon to max out companion affection (with Quinn) I have had decent luck with selling color crystals, but focus more on the synth alt.

I have all the crew skills across my stable of characters, with some duplicates in the gathering and mission skills. My craft skills are on par with my gathering skills and the level of the character. The skills I have trouble leveling are the mission skills, each mission mission so time consuming, and expensive, relative to the gathering and crafting skills. My highest mission skill is maybe two-thirds as high as my highest craft or gathering skills.

One of my favorite things about MMO’s is leveling multiple characters to collect all the (at least gathering) professions. I have found that my tendency toward charitable gathering has left me broke a few times, but I love having the ability to gather/craft whatever my friends and guild mates seek. 🙂 The recent influx of demand for orange augmented crafted items has certainly changed the profession leveling scene for the better! Nice piece, thanks 🙂

Making augmentable orange gear can be really profitable, even while leveling a profession. Doubly for fashionable looks. At least on the servers I sell on, the demand for those items continues to outpace my ability to supply them. (May vary wildly by server.)

I listened to the official “Rocket Boots” podcast earlier today. It seems that there are plans for 1.3 to include the option to add Augmented slots to any piece of gear through the use of the Modification stations. So much for our crits being worth anything.

Agreed – I hope they do something reasonable with it and I have faith that BW will. But the potential does exist for someone to buy orange gear from the social vendors (which will now adapt itself to be light/med/heavy based on the wearer) add an augment slot and be set forever without ever needing anything besides augments from crafters.

I’m personally hoping it only applies to items that have no schematics available, essentially. Like Social items. It sucks to not be able to have augment slots on an outfit I like so I’m looking forward to it.

I think what would help crafters a lot is if they sunk some time into making the GTN more user friendly for both sellers and buyers. They’ve taken some baby steps with it but need to step it up. Before the last patch (1.2.3) there was a problem with searching for items and as a result a ton of items that I usually sell regularly were returned to me because my regular buyers couldn’t find them. I would wager that if the GTN was improved from it’s default barely functional state it would surely stimulate the market.

I would like a bite more drag and drop functionality. For the most part, most of the commerce sharks have grown accustomed to the its “quirks” but I think the casual MMO player is likely to still find the interface cumbersome and outdated. The first dose of dysfunction we got from the early models of the GTN seems to cause a lot of people to continue to shy away from using it despite its gradual improvements.

In MMOs, my expectation is that there is low profit margins on items whose schematic is readily available. So if you pick off any schematics in the GTN at a low price, they might be a better bet.

Perhaps not the most profitable but a profitable and very convenient strategy is, regardless of your crafting, to level Diplomacy even if you are going to later drop it. You can now make LS/DS choices you want as you can get to 5 easily. DS5 before you get your speeder or at least much easier than without Diplo.

Understand opportunity cost. If your mission gets you a 200 credit gift for 95 credits but you lose the opportunity to send them out on a Level 5 or 6 mission that generates 3000 credits in profit, then the 200 credit gift has cost you 3000 not 95. With an efficient GTN on your realm, you will tend to do the most profitable mission rather than the one that generates the material you need. True min/maxers will choose the most profitable gather professions even if they are not used by that character’s crafting profession. Similarly, if the gathering profession’s missions generate items that sell for more than they cost, then it really does not matter what they cost. Think of gathering missions are just inconvenient versions of slicing missions. Instead of a lockbox that you open for credits you get items you need to sell in order to recoup your costs.

Think of your companion non-crafting missions as Farmville. If you send out 100 missions in a day and I send out 200, then I will get more profit. If/When you can do this on an iPad, the profitability will drop. ( As will office productivity. )

The most important crafting advice is that just because some famous crafting diva makes some unwarranted derogatory comments about “S&M leathers” DO NOT LISTEN TO HER! Sith Dueling Leathers are a very good and distinctive look!

Thanks for sharing your perspective. As a crafting enthusiast regardless of the MMO, I am in complete agreement with your POV around opportunity cost and ignoring crafted items whose schematics are easily attained.

I am bummed when I hear folks writing off crafting as a waste of time and credits; there are a number of different approaches, including the one you have outlined here, that can keep crafting profitable or at least break even.

For me, I just suck at playing the Market. Most people, if they ask for something, it’s either not for SW or for something I do not have (which always surprises me considering just how many things I do have). Not to mention I couldn’t figure out what to sell regardless of how much I stare at the GTN 😦

Thanks muchly. I essentially screwed myself when I put mods into an outfit I wanted to wear before realizing that:
1. It cost -37K-, not the roughly 3K or so like usual.
2. The set bonuses didn’t carry afterall 😐
So any money I do earn usually ends up going to repairs and all that money I tried to save for legacy stuff went down the toilet. >___>

I’m just kind of out of ideas on how to get more schematics and things. Any I have gotten, I’ve used the schematic for–I even have two augment schematics. Not to mention trying to figure out what it seems isn’t up much doesn’t help too much either. Though, that’s partially just because I suck at it.